“What have you done?” She’s pulling him, hitting him with both hands, demanding an answer. He just looks at her, his mouth downturned. “Him get what him deserve,” is all he says before he flees.
Clover is mounted on a stretcher and two policemen question residents, to discover the identity of the man who started the fight. They say that they have to make an arrest. Holding the knife—which was Clover’s—as evidence, they say that only a dangerous criminal would attempt to kill a man cold-blooded in the street for no reason at all. Absolutely no good reason at all. But no one knows where Charles went. The news comes back later that night that Clover had a heart attack and died on the way to the hospital. But the people believe that it was Charles who killed him.
29
WHEN VERDENE SEES THE SHAKING BOY ON THE STEPS OF HER veranda, she lowers the flashlight and opens the grille for him. He’s bloodied and clutching himself as though trying to stop the shaking. Without asking any questions, Verdene wrestles one of his hands free from its grasp on his upper arm and leads him inside. JPS took the electricity again, so she lights a kerosene lamp to see. Charles sits still, resting his hands on the dining table where he once sat the first time she let him inside the house. Verdene regards the blood on his shirt. “Are you hurt?” she asks. Charles doesn’t raise his head.
“Ah didn’t know where else to go weh dey wouldn’t look fah me,” he finally says.
“What happened? Why are you running?” Verdene begins to wonder if she has made a mistake letting him inside before asking this question. She’s suddenly fearful, but because she doesn’t want the boy to think she is nervous around him, she busies herself with an internal script—the role her mother would have played.
“Let me at least get you cleaned up.”
She gets up with the flashlight and goes inside the bathroom for a basin and washcloth. She also grabs a University of Cambridge T-shirt, which she inherited from her husband, out of her drawer. When she returns to the dining room, Charles still hasn’t moved. He doesn’t even seem to be breathing. The quiet roars in Verdene’s ears as she holds the wet rag over his eyebrows. Slowly she wipes his forehead, the area above his mouth, and his hands. He winces when the damp cloth touches his upper arm where there’s a gash. Verdene gets her first-aid kit and dresses it. “Calm down and just breathe,” she hears her mother’s voice say to him in a whisper. It must have been all the boy needed to hear, because as soon as Verdene says this, he breaks down. His body jerks with loud sobs, his hands covering his face. “What happened, Charles?” she asks, trying hard to keep her voice steady.
“Ah kill someone,” he says. “Ah hear dat police aftah me now. Mama Gracie warn me.”
Verdene regards him closely. His frame appears small and wilted in the light of the kerosene lamp. He doesn’t look like a murderer, though his confession looms large inside the house, moving and shifting things. Something in the house braces. After a second or two, Verdene grabs a chair. “You what?” she asks.
“Ah kill someone,” he repeats. “Him rape my girlfriend.”
This time Verdene lets his statement fall inside the quiet like a single hair landing on the wooden floors. Not since she knelt by her father’s stiff body on the kitchen floor after she watched him suffer a heart attack has she felt so paralyzed by ambivalence. She peers at Charles through the cloud of this memory, thinking how she had hurt with guilt for days, and how there were no remedies to quell the agonizing pain that she never expected to feel for the person who she thought deserved it. Verdene gets up and kneels in front of Charles. Her instinct is to grab him and comfort him, but instead she says, “Do you know for sure that he’s dead?”
Charles nods. “Yes.”
“Maybe you didn’t kill him. Maybe he’s just hurt.”
“Ah know for ah fact dat him dead. Dat me kill him.” His jawbone clenches. “When me look pon him face an’ see him smiling like di devil himself, knowing dat him rape my girl, all ah wanted to do was to kill him. But ah didn’t know when or how dat force tek ovah me. Next t’ing me know, me see Mama Gracie an’ she tell me how dey pronounce him dead at di hospital.”
“Oh, Charles . . .”
“Me neva mean fi kill him.”
“I know you didn’t mean to.”
Charles looks at her. His face is colorless. Verdene has a feeling that if this man is really dead, then so is Charles. Not because of how the police treat criminals, but because of the guilt she senses has already begun to wear him down. Verdene wants desperately to ease his anxiety, so she decides on logic. “If you can prove that he raped your girlfriend, then maybe you can argue that you did it in defense.”
Charles shakes his head and covers his face again. “There’s no proof. It ’appen years ago.” Verdene rubs his back, feels his muscles tense up again. “I can’t stay here,” he says suddenly. “I can’t stay in Rivah Bank. Ah must get going.” Verdene silently agrees, though she would never think of saying this out loud. She would have offered him a hiding place, but then she would have to explain to Margot when she drops by after her shift at the hotel and sees a boy—an alleged killer—inside the house. And besides, Margot can never be seen here by anyone. So Charles must go.
“At least change off first and eat something before you go,” Verdene tells him.
“Ah can’t eat anyt’ing.” He takes off his bloody shirt and puts on the one Verdene gives him. “Thank you for this,” he says, smoothing the fabric over his chest, his fingers trailing the University of Cambridge letters. He folds his soiled shirt, and Verdene offers to bury it outside, next to the dead dogs. She thinks of things to say to convince him that justice might still be on his side, but cannot come up with anything. “You must really love her. That girl?” she says as he heads toward the door. He pauses with his hand on the handle. The darkness is thick outside, since it’s overcast and there are no stars or a moon tonight. One would think it might finally rain; but Verdene won’t hold her breath. “Yes. I do,” Charles replies.
“I would’ve done the same thing,” she says.
Charles lets go of the knob. He leans against the doorpost and looks Verdene right in the eye. “Yuh know, ah used to be afraid ah witches.”
With that, he leaves her in the dark. She looks around the house. Not since she returned to it, wanting to be closer to her mother, has she felt so alone. How repelled she is tonight by the floors, the walls, the curtains, the burglar bars by the windows through which most days she can barely see the wide expanse of the sky.
30
ALPHONSO CALLS MARGOT TO THE VILLA, WHICH HAS BECOME their meeting place. Sweetness is with her, because she happens to be on the schedule for tonight’s soiree. But when they get there, the developers are frenzied. Alphonso is pacing, blowing cigarette smoke through his nostrils.
“What’s going on?” Margot asks Alphonso as soon as she enters.
“The fucking police.”
“Why are they involved?”
“A murder happened in the development area. They decided to shut down the whole fucking project until they find the killer. They think the activity from the construction could give the guy cover.”
“What?”
“We’re losing money, Margot. The longer the police make us wait as they investigate this crime, the more we suffer. Tourists aren’t going to want to come to a high-crime area. The investors are shitting themselves as we speak! I got a call from Virgil. He’s threatening to pull out.”
“Calm down, I can fix this.”
“How?” he almost shouts.
“Let me think.”
An idea, which was really a thought uttered too loudly, too prematurely, surfaces from Margot’s mouth; materializes into sound waves that halt the developers in the room, bringing them closer to the table where Margot sits. Alphonso too listens, his arms folded across his chest, visibly amused. “Where would we get the money to pay the reward?”
“We’re flush with cash, Alphonso, and you know it,” Margot says. “Sweetness
alone is bringing in seven thousand a week. The other girls are just as profitable. We can do this.”
“So ten grand and we solve everything?” one of the developers asks.
“Yes, ten grand,” Margot replies. “I suggest we tell the constable about it so that he can relax his force. This money will have the residents of River Bank scouring every nook an’ cranny for the criminal. In the meantime, we send Sweetness to the police station.”
“Sweetness?” Alphonso asks. “Why Sweetness?”
“Because if you’re going to take over a quarter of the island, then you should at least be smart about it. Be nice to the police. They can be your biggest allies or worst enemies. Like women, they love it when you bring them gifts.”
The men in the room laugh. Alphonso laughs too.
“Margot, you’re brilliant,” he says.
···
Again people gather at Dino’s. There’s a search warrant for Charles and a prize of $10,000 in U.S. currency offered by the police department for the person who turns him over.
Word about the reward money spreads. No one knows why there’s such a high price to find a scrawny boy who killed a drunk in a bar fight. Macka thinks the money has to do with the development in the area. “Those developers don’t want no killah roaming ’bout di place. They want di worthy guests of dey hotel to be safe.”
Some men have already paid a visit to Miss Violet’s shack. They ransacked the place looking for Charles. The fact that they came in on a helpless woman means nothing to them; they were looking to fill pants pockets that only knew lint and loose change. They were already imagining the insides of airplanes and the promise of America. So when Miss Violet told them that she didn’t know where her son was, they grabbed her by the throat and pulled her hair. One drew a knife and the other one a rope. Her screams were heard only by Miss Ruby, who ran from her shack to find the woman tied up in her bed with cuts on her face.
Thandi is paralyzed with regret. She lies on the bed, curled up under the covers. She clutches the towel she never returned to Charles and sniffs it, trying to inhale the memory of him.
“But is what is dis?” Delores asks, standing over Thandi. “Me leave an’ yuh in bed. Me come back an’ yuh still in bed. Ah wah do yuh?”
Thandi shifts under the cover, quickly wiping away her tears. “Jus’ tired,” she says.
“Tyad? Somebody can tyad so long? Yuh don’t have nothing to do now the exams are finished? Get up!” Delores pulls the covers off Thandi. But Thandi doesn’t move. “If ah count to tree an’ yuh still lay dung, me will geet to yuh. Yuh know how much ah clock ah strike? Yuh have graduation rehearsal tomorrow, don’t?”
Delores starts to move around in the kitchen to prepare dinner. Thandi sits up in the bed.
“Bwoy, me ah tell yuh ’bout dem yout’ wid no ambition,” Delores says as she slices open the skin of a green banana and drops the skinned banana into the pot. “Membah Violet boy, Charles? Di ole brute who used to come ’roun here fah food? Him deh pon di wanted list now. Ten thousand U.S. dollah.” She whips around from the boiling pot to see if Thandi is listening. “Yuh hear? Ten thousand dollah! Yuh know wah dat can do?” She pauses as though Thandi is obligated to speak. When Thandi doesn’t reply, Delores answers her own question. “It can buy we nuff t’ings!” She returns to skinning bananas. “But ah feel so sorry fah Violet now. Di poor woman lose everyt’ing ’cluding all di screws in har head. But I can tell yuh one t’ing, though. If she tell di police where her son is, she will get di money an’ have a bettah life. True, true! She will be a rich woman if she send him to prison. Fah all di pain dat boy cause har. But dese hooligans ’roun here so hungry dat dem will t’ief it. Suh she should leave town an’ not tell ah soul. See how dey do har wah day? T’ink she would tell dem where him hiding?” Delores peers at Thandi when she whips around again. Her eyes narrow. “I know ’bout you two. John-John saw di both of ’oonuh in Sam Sharpe Square hugging up like lovers. Yuh t’ink me nuh ’ave eyes ’roun here? If yuh know where he is, yuh should call it in. Do it fah all ah we. Yuh know how long ah could use a break? Every single day me bruk me back wid dese damn baskets.”
Her mother is standing still by the stove, harping as if to the shadows that are perched nearby. “If yuh guh pick up wid a street boy, then yuh mus’ at least get something out of it. Because what can a dutty, wingworm, gully bwoy who don’t even own a pair of shoes do fah you, eh?”
“He’s more than just a street boy,” Thandi says when she regains her ability to speak.
Delores whips around. “Oh, suh yuh know where he is.” This is a statement, not a question. Thandi doesn’t like what she sees in her mother’s eyes. It’s a look she has seen before when asked about school and her grades—the image of herself crouched at the table with her books under the glare of the kerosene lamp mounting and mounting in her mother’s pupils—a mammoth creature of her mother’s lofty goals and dreams. It fills her mother’s eyes, expanding the blackness and roundness that reminds Thandi of the look Miss Gracie gets when she experiences one of her holy visions.
“I didn’t say that,” Thandi replies.
“Di way yuh talkin’ mek it seem suspicious. Yuh talkin’ like yuh know where him is. For all I know, yuh coulda see him yesterday an’ nuh tell a soul.” Delores’s voice is loaded with accusation. “I didn’t sacrifice to send yuh to school fi guh pick up wid those types. You become di people you associate yuhself wid—” She pauses, her head shaking and her pointer finger wagging as though to make up for half of what she’s thinking. Then the words appear—not the ones she seemed to search for, but new ones generated from somewhere as dark as the shadows from which she seeks counsel. Thandi can almost see them forming, rising from that place of darkness like soot from the inner workings of her mother’s mind. Thandi is looking straight up into Delores’s face, right up into her nostrils. “Do it fah all ah we, Thandi.” She gestures to Grandma Merle, who is silently resting on her bed. Grandma Merle, who has long been a shadow except for the subtle rise and fall of her chest.
“I have a mind of my own,” Thandi says.
“Yuh know where he is?”
“No, Mama.”
“Yuh know wah ten thousand U.S. dollah can get we?”
“Yes, but I feel responsible.”
“Responsible fah wah?” Delores stands up straight, no longer hovering over Thandi. She puts her hands on her hips. “What yuh sayin’ to me?”
“He did it because of me.”
“Wah?”
“Charles fought Clover because of me. I told him that Clover raped me years ago.”
“Clover?”
“Yes.”
“My Clover?” Thandi cringes at the possessiveness in her mother’s voice. “Di Clover who used to come ’roun here an’ help we wid t’ings ’roun di house? Clover who used to fix up di roof, mek sure seh we nuh get wet when it rain? Clover who guard di place when yuh wutless Uncle Winston lef’?”
“Yes,” Thandi says.
“When was dis?” Delores asks.
“Six years ago. I was walking home from school, an’ . . .”
Delores is quiet. She feels for a chair by the kitchen table and sits. The shadows flee back to their corners and crouch, waiting. Delores puts her hands on her head and slowly rocks herself the way Grandma Merle does in her chair. A sound erupts from her belly. It rises up as though through her air pipes, settling deep inside her throat, and stays. “Yuh turning into yuh sistah more an’ more every day,” she says in a low, raspy voice. “Jus’ like har, yuh becoming a wench, a manipulative, trifling wench!” Delores stands up.
“Mama, Charles was only defending me.”
“Why him need fi defend yuh now if it happen years ago?”
“Because it still affect me.”
Delores comes close to Thandi, her arms open as if to embrace her. Thandi is prepared to rest her head against her mother’s big breasts. She’s ready to drop her shoulders and let her mother rub them, tell her that it w
ill be all right. That Clover got what he deserved. The embrace is a sweet one—one Thandi had forgotten until now. Her mother’s love is as vicious and domineering as her personality. Once it’s felt, there is none other like it. Thandi relaxes in Delores’s embrace, allowing herself to be rocked back and forth like a baby. But then it’s cut short. Slowly, Delores pries Thandi off her and holds her at arm’s length. “I want you to come to yuh senses an’ turn dat boy in. Everything ’appen for a reason, an’ dat was it,” Delores says. “Do it fah all ah we, Thandi.”
“He was defending me.”
“Di devil is a liad. Him kick yuh dung, but it don’t mean yuh can’t get back up an’ use the tool him fling give yuh. What Clover did is history. Something long gaan. So put it behind yuh an’ do the right t’ing.”
“Him is a brute, Mama.”
“Shush! Yuh g’wan pay for cursing di dead.” Delores pulls Thandi closer again and rocks her in her bosom. She smells like the green banana she sliced up. She runs her fingers through Thandi’s hair as she speaks. “You an’ dat bwoy Charles shouldn’t mix in di first place. As me say, if yuh guh pick up wid a street boy, then yuh mus’ at least get something out of it. Forget ’bout what Clover did. Dat won’t set yuh free. Nuff people it happen to an’ it didn’t kill them. What will set yuh free is money. Don’t say me neva teach yuh dat. I send you to school fah good reasons, yes. But is also for you to learn common sense. Yuh t’ink because Charles say him love yuh dat yuh worth something? Yuh t’ink because him say him want yuh dat him mean it? That is not one t’ing him aftah, an’ when him get it, him run? What is dis love, eh? You don’t know nuttin’ ’bout no love. Love is foolish. Yuh eva see love put running wata inna pipe? Yuh eva see love build a roof ovah we head? Yuh eva see love give free education to those children whose parents can’t afford school fee? Yuh eva see love full up we cupboard? Yuh eva see love hand we visa so we can go anyweh, far from dis rat hole? What can love do fah you, eh? How yuh g’wan love a stranger when yuh don’t even know what love is? Him will jus’ tek advantage of yuh an’ walk away. Yuh haffi get yuh return in dollahs, not cents. An’ besides, who g’wan want a naïve girl like you, eh?
Here Comes the Sun Page 24
